While many of us will be at camp at the end of June, the General Assembly of the PCA will be meeting in Dallas, TX.  Next week I will be putting together a prayer guide for GA, and I encourage you to keep our Denomination in your prayers.  There is a lot of good happening in the PCA, but there are many areas of concern as our Church seeks to be a faithful witness in a fallen world. 

Today I’d like to give an update on the overtures that will come before the Assembly. In all there are 47 Overtures to the General Assembly, coming from the Presbyteries of the PCA.  The business of the overtures can range from making improvements to the Church’s Constitution to calling for Study Committees or making formal resolutions.  

Here is a brief breakdown of the overtures coming before the General Assembly:

There are 11 Overtures that address the issues of Human Sexuality, Sexual Orientation, and Sexual Identity. This has been a continuing conversation within the Church: how do we present the gospel in a day when the world around us has all but completely abandoned Biblical views of humanity and sexual morality?  These overtures call for study committees to address concerns of recent actions in the Church, for the affirmation of previous statements supporting the Biblical teaching on sexuality, or for the acceptance of statements made by other Reformed bodies.

There are 9 overtures calling for a study committee on Domestic Abuse. According to ByFaith magazine, these overtures “call attention to pastoral resources that explore the nature of [domestic abuse and sexual assault] and offer help for victims of them, to propose best practices and policy guidelines to protect against these sins and respond to them, and to consider proposing changes to the Rules of Discipline that might more appropriately protect victims within a biblical process.”  Study Committees, if formed, are tasked by the Assembly to study the particular issue at hand and make recommendations to the following Assembly.  Those recommendations can be received and acted upon, or can simply be noted without taking any action.

7 overtures were presented calling for a change in our constitution that would allow for non-ordained persons to serve on Boards of the Church.  Under the current Constitutional provisions for Governing Boards and Agencies of the PCA (ie. seminaries, colleges, investments) only ordained Elders and Deacons are allowed to serve on behalf of the Assembly.  If approved, these Constitutional changes would allow for non-ordained persons, women, to serve on the boards of Church institutions.

Surprisingly, there are only 2 Overtures regarding the Church’s teaching on abortion.  The Church has held a clear Biblical teaching on abortion, but it is disappointing that such a pressing issue in our nation get such little attention by the Church.

Several other overtures seek to clarify the constitution, or make subtle changes in the Rules of Assembly Operations, what I like to call “rearranging the deck furniture.”

If you’d like more information about the overtures coming before GA, you can visit the PCA Administrative Committee Website here.  You can also read more about GA at the ByFaith magazine online, or at the PCA General Assembly website.

It is important to remember the process of overtures before the GA.  The majority of overtures are sent to the Overtures Committee where they will be debated, refined, or even combined with similar overtures, and recommendations will be made to the Assembly. Some overtures are referred to the permanent committees or agency boards because they relate to their work. These committees or agencies formulate their own recommendations on such overtures and, like the OC, may recommend that the Assembly answer it in the affirmative, propose amendments, or reject it by answering it in the negative. The whole Assembly then votes on the Overtures that come from the committees.  Any Overture that would change the Constitution of the church which passes the Assembly must then be ratified by 2/3^rd majority of the Presbyteries before the changes take effect.

Last Sunday I preached on how the Church is called to Worship God according to His Word, and why the way we prepare our hearts for worship is vital to our experience in worship.  I made mention in the sermon of A. W. Tozer’s book, The Pursuit of God, and I thought I share some of the highlights from that book that didn’t make it into my message.

Worship is to feel in the heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe. Worship will humble a person as nothing else can. The egotistical, self-important man cannot worship God any more than the arrogant devil can worship God. There must be humility in the heart before there can be worship.

Worship is no longer worship when it reflects the culture around us more than the Christ within us.

We enter the house dedicated to God, made out of bricks, linoleum and other stuff, and we say, “The Lord is in His holy temple; let all kneel before Him.”  I personally enjoy starting a service that way occasionally. But it does not stop there. Come 9:00 A.M. Monday morning, if you do not walk into your office and say, “The Lord is in my office and all the world is silent before Him,” then you were not worshiping the Lord on Sunday. If you cannot worship Him on Monday, then you did not worship Him on Sunday. If you do not worship Him on Saturday, your worship Sunday is not authentic. Some people put God in a box we call the church building. God is not present in the church any more than He is present in your home. God is not here any more than He is in your factory or office. If God is not in your factory, if God is not in your store, if God is not in your office, then God is not in your church when you go there.

The total life, the whole man and woman, must worship God. Faith, love, obedience, loyalty, conduct and life – all of these are to worship God. If there is anything in you that does not worship God, then there is not anything in you that does worship God very well. If you departmentalize your life and let certain parts worship God, but other parts do not worship God, then you are not worshiping God as you should. It is a great delusion we fall into, the idea that in church or in the presence of death or in the midst of sublimity is the only setting for worship…

Worship pleasing to God saturates our whole being. There is no worship pleasing to God until there is nothing in me displeasing to God. I cannot departmentalize my life, worship God on Sunday and not worship Him on Monday. I cannot worship Him in my songs and displease Him in my business engagements. I cannot worship God in silence in the church on Sunday, to the sound of hymns, then go out the next day and be displeasing to Him in my activities. No worship is wholly pleasing to God until there is nothing in us that is displeasing to God.
Without Jesus Christ, there is no goodness, and so I do not apologize at all when I say that your worship has to be all-inclusive and take you all in. If you are not worshiping God in all your life, then you are not worshiping Him acceptably in any area of your life.

Tozer, A. W. The Purpose of Man: Designed to Worship.(Bethany House Pub., Bloomington, MN, 2009)

From the Pastor’s Desk – Here is a bit of the things I’ve been reading this week, or watching, that I thought I’d pass along.

Three Approaches to Ecclesiastes: Understanding how we are to read and interpret the Book of Ecclesiastes is one of the biggest challenges for any thoughtful reader.  This essay presents three approaches to Ecclesiastes that I think are helpful.

Fleecing the Flock: Last week I posted a link to an article about PreacherNSneakers, a twitter account that showed pictures of Preachers wearing incredibly expensive and elaborate fashion.  Along the same line, here is an article from the BBC on the scourge of “Prosperity Gospel” preachers and the people who give their money to support them. It is heartbreaking to see how some will use the name of Christ to benefit themselves and bring ruin to others.

Just for Fun

Solving the Rubik’s Cube: I’ve been working one of my sons to try to solve his Rubik’s cube.  I’m down to maybe 10 minutes, but I don’t think I’ll ever be a speed cuber.  This is simply amazing.

A Golden Performance: If you haven’t seen this amazing performance by Kodi Lee on America’s Got Talent, you really should watch it.  I wasn’t crying when I watched it, I just had something in my eye.